Tactical and Operational Exploratory Modeling for AI Governance

Using computational methods to improve our preparedness via more robust and adaptive strategies in AI governance. A project proposal for a think tank, consultancy, or software.Overview Over the years, I’ve come across or come up with a number of project ideas in AI safety and governance that I find promising. My top list has less than ten, but in total there are hundreds. Either way, too many for me to realize them all. Instead I want to promote these ideas in the hopes that others will pick them up. This is one of them.Summary Traditionally, understanding the broad strategic considerations in AI safety and governance has received a lot of attention – e.g., distinguishing risks from malicious use, coordination failures (e.g., arms races), accidents, and the AIs themselves; understanding convergent drives; surveying the landscape of x-risks and s-risks.Over the course of the last 7–9 years, I’ve been delighted to see more interest in modeling AI scenarios, be it to communicate the risks (e.g., Intelligence Rising, Modeling Cooperation), to answer particular research questions (e.g., Vermeer et al., 2025, Modeling Cooperation), or to argue for particular policy solutions (e.g., CAIS’s MAIM). These scenarios have been still mostly on a strategic, perhaps sometimes operational level, and much more illustrative than comprehensive. Mengesha (2026) has made a strong case for improving preparedness and Perry et al. (2019) argue for a more pragmatic approach to the policy-making process that, meanwhile, some think tanks have started to address but that can be further strengthened.Over the same time period, there has also been a proliferation of probabilistic forecasts, especially of AI timelines (e.g., Grace, 2017, Cotra, 2020, Barnett, 2020, AI 2027) and global catastrophic risks from AI (e.g., Saeri et al., 2026).What I haven’t seen so far is (1) computational exploratory modeling, and (2) modeling on the operational to tactical level.There are software frameworks, like the